Dan Caldwell, a top adviser to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was escorted out of the Pentagon, barred from returning, and placed on administrative leave Tuesday for making “an unauthorized disclosure,” amid an investigation into recent high-profile leaks of sensitive information.
In March, Caldwell participated in a Signal group chat discussing military strikes on Yemen that mistakenly included Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg. In the chat, Sec. Hegseth identified Caldwell as the Pentagon’s point of contact regarding the offensive.
The widely-reported national security scandal prompted a Pentagon probe of the Signal leak, as well as of other "recent unauthorized disclosures of national security information." As part of the probe, polygraphs are being administered during interviews in order to identify those responsible for the leaks.
Information “identifying a party responsible for an unauthorized disclosure would be referred for criminal prosecution,” according to Sec. Hegseth’s Chief of Staff Joe Kasper. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has also promised that the Pentagon will aggressively pursue leakers it has identified in the Intelligence Community and hold them to account.
Caldwell may be at odds with the Trump Administration’s foreign policy. Caldwell has “argued that the U.S. should dramatically reduce its footprint in Europe and pull out forces in Iraq and Syria,” according to Fox News.
A second Hegseth adviser, Pentagon Deputy Chief of Staff Darin Selnick, was also suspended Tuesday as part of the same probe and escorted out of the building on Tuesday. Like Caldwell, Selnick was placed on administrative leave pending the results of the investigation.
On Wednesday, Colin Carroll, a chief of staff to Deputy Defense Secretary Stephen Feinberg, was similarly suspended.